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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27943724">Land of Nod</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_blue_fairie/pseuds/the_blue_fairie'>the_blue_fairie</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Wolfwalkers (2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 23:00:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>449</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27943724</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_blue_fairie/pseuds/the_blue_fairie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A very short prose-poem from Robyn's perspective, inspired by the scene of her struggling not to fall asleep that long night before she sends her message to Mebh.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Land of Nod</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Close your eyes, tears run down your cheeks.</p>
<p>Keep them wide, tears gather in their corners.</p>
<p>In the cracks.</p>
<p>Building, burning.</p>
<p>Chinks in the armor of your body.</p>
<p>(A body is not armor.)</p>
<p>(It should not be armor.)</p>
<p>(A child’s body, least of all.)</p>
<p>(You are not a thing forged; you <em>know</em> that.)</p>
<p>That thought, seductive as a wisp of light…</p>
<p>Rusting bloodshot, the water festering in this imperfect thing of flesh.</p>
<p>(It should be better forged.)</p>
<p>That thought’s brother, that thought’s Cain…</p>
<p>(No! for Cain was murderer, Cain was destruction – and this brother seeks to preserve, protect…)</p>
<p>(Then why…)</p>
<p>(Why does this steeling yourself feel wrong, unless…)</p>
<p>(Unless you are in the wrong…)</p>
<p>(Unless you are… wrong.)</p>
<p>Close your eyes, your head falls forward.</p>
<p>The wolf rises in gold, natural as sleep…</p>
<p>(You must not sleep!)</p>
<p>(Must not give in to sleep.)</p>
<p>(Must not succumb to…)</p>
<p>(Give in… succumb…)</p>
<p>(As though sleep is not natural to humankind, when you <em>know</em> it is.)</p>
<p>(As though you know better than the Maker that breathed life into you…)</p>
<p>(Is that not pride?)</p>
<p>That seductiveness again, it is subtle, settling over you like a shimmer… it makes the wrongness in you tempting, alluring, honey-golden, sweet, brilliant wreaths of gold, wolf-headed…</p>
<p>It leaves you perverting words for your own purposes – <em>that</em> is pride – when you have seen the Word imprinted, line by line, boxes of text, like the framework of an ash-town, an iron-town…</p>
<p>(That same Word has been painted on leaves as golden as the wolf-head rearing itself – yourself – filigreed light finding reflection in crystalline calligraphy, in saints’ faces like sea-gods’…)</p>
<p>(Blasphemies spoken by your heart.)</p>
<p>Your face ashen like the chimneys of an iron-town, like the torches that set a forest alight, like the torch in the Lord Protector’s hand as you pled with him, sobbing, your own arms outstretched as on a cross…</p>
<p>(Pride again…)</p>
<p>(A little pariah’s pride…)</p>
<p>You bunch yourself up against the wall –</p>
<p>Against the blackness of the wall –</p>
<p>A little bob of type against the ink –</p>
<p>(Tighten yourself.)</p>
<p>(Lockstep amid the rows of letters in the press.)</p>
<p>(Rows of letters like rows of houses, squares of structure, black and white.)</p>
<p>(But something… wrong.)</p>
<p>(Some odd enjambment.)</p>
<p>(Some blankness or some blot in the printing of the Scripture – not from the Scripture itself, don’t you dare say that, and not from the mechanism – it cannot be the mechanism –)</p>
<p>From the little bob of type…</p>
<p>Fallen out of place…</p>
<p>Or even if in place, <em>defective.</em></p>
<p>You can rigidify yourself, hold yourself in place upon the press, rows, rows, neatly structured, and still be <em>wrong.</em></p>
<p>Little stunted thing.</p>
<p>Besmirchment of the Word.</p>
<p>
  <em>Defective.</em>
</p>
<p>Eyes wide, for fear of sleep.</p>
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